Action on hospitality

06 December 2012

The British Hospitality Association and The Foodservice Consultants Society International (FCSI) UK & Ireland have combined forces to publish Outsourcing 2012: Removing The Barriers for Catering and Facilities Management.

The aims are to provide a single voice to government with a series of clear recommendations and to support food and service management (FSM) companies’ participation in public sector contracts.

David Bentley, FIH, FCSI Chairman said: “By working together, we are able to provide a single voice outlining how we can achieve the Government’s goals set out in its Open Public Services Strategy. A clear vision, level playing field, investment in technical skills and better recognition of the value of food are all required.”

Key report findings
? In 2010-2011 the public sector spent over £2.1 billion on food and catering.
? The Food Service and Management Sector includes both catering and a wide range of soft FM services. It’s worth £4.2 billion.
? In 2010-11 the public sector spent 5% (£11.3 billion) of its £235 billion procurement budget on total facilities management outsourcing. It is predicted that this figure will rise by 38% to £15.6 billion by 2017.
? In 2010-11 FSM companies provided 610 million meals in total for the public sector, just under one quarter of the total 2.4 billion meals provided In 2011.
Up to 10% cost savings could be made by outsourcing health and education FM and catering (CBI: Open Access Report, September 2012).

Phil Hooper, Chairman of the BHA's Food and Service Management (FSM) Forum said: “According to the Cabinet Office, over the next five years £70bn of government contracts across 13 different sectors will be put out to re-tender. Food Service Management and Catering are prime examples of low hanging fruit where outsourcing could save the government 10% on itscatering and wider facilities management budget. The scale and complexity of many large-scale contracts further lend themselves to outsourcing. We are simply asking the government to take advantage of the world class talent within the UK FSM industry.”

Ufi Ibrahim, Chief Executive of the British Hospitality Association said: “Our FSM members serve up over 600 million meals per year to school children, hospital patients, prisoners, MOD staff and public sector workers, yet this is just one quarter of the total number of meals provided every year. Our nation marches on its stomach, and this report sets out the opportunity to look again about how these meals are provided. We have set out some clear recommendations for government to recognise the value of this sector and also some firm commitments on behalf of our members."

The Report for the first time focuses on the practical application of the data and recommends four government actions:

1. remove barriers to outsourcing so that small and medium sized companies can compete on a level playing field.
2. improve the commissioning process so that the governments own procurement people and systems are up-skilled.
3. set a clear overall vision for a more strategic outsourcing provision and make use of the world class skills available in the UK.
4. recognise the value of food – with 6.6 million meals provided every day of the year across the public sector, our nation marches on its stomach.